Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!



Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups





















« Shock: New Techology Employed to Create Porn | Main | The New Yorker -- Not Just Irrelevant, But Stupid Too! »
June 20, 2008

Andrew Sullivan Extremely Excited That Barack Obama Has "Cunning" To Lie, Abandon Principle, and Ruthlessly Act in Own Best Interests

Barack Obama has been praised for merely talking. Why shouldn't he now be praised for simply acting like any other politician?

This isn't racism, mind you. It's just praising a black guy for managing to do what everyone else does. It's good racism.

Barack Obama abandoned his promise to limit his fundraising by accepting federal matching funds. As Allah and Dean Barnett both readily admit, it's hard to really castigate him much for doing what anyone in his situation would have done. He's raising more money than anyone else in the American -- and world -- political history; that's simply too much of an advantage to toss aside for "principle."

I put "principle" in quotes because I've never really understood why raising lots of money from lots of different people is itself such a horrible thing. It didn't bother me when Bush raised a lot of money, mostly from small donors, though of course the MSM attempted to portray this as something nefarious, equating Bush's quite legal fundraising with Al Gore's blatantly illegal fundraising from Chinese nuns in 1996.

And I put "principle" in quotes, too, because this was never actually Barack Obama's principle in the first place. His pledge, from the beginning, was an empty political gesture intended to benefit himself-- he thought he'd be at a big money disadvantage to Hillary Clinton, so he made a big promise about accepting federal matching funds because accepting matching funds would give him the most money possible, and he could claim it was some sort of virtue that he was taking in less money than Hillary.

He was attempting to cast hard reality -- a massive fundraising disadvantage -- as some sort of show of integrity. I could raise just as much money as Hillary, but I nobly choose not to.

Of course, as it turned out, he was taking in a lot more money than Hillary, so he quickly abandoned that promise. The very moment his initial assumption -- I'll raise less than Hillary, so let me position myself by claiming that raising more money is bad -- proved false, he abandoned that claim, and began talking up the virtues of raising lots of money from lots of donors.

And now, of course, knowing he can absolutely swamp John McCain with money-power, he abandons his pledge of taking matching funds in the general campaign, too, as expected.

In fact, he even managed to lie about that, quite gratuitously and clumsily, first claiming he'd tried to meet with McCain's people to negotiate how each would remain within the federal matching-funds limit, and only later conceding he'd completely made that up and refused to even entertain such a meeting from the get-go.

Barack Obama's decisions may be understandable. People acting in their own self-interest is always an understandable phenomenon. So, he lied and made promises and broke them, and feigned an interest in higher principle when all along he was merely interested in securing the maximum possible political advantage for himself. Par for the course in politics.

But if it's understandable that he lied, broke promises, and proclaimed false adherence to higher principles, surely it's not virtuous or praiseworthy that he did so.

Telling a useful lie in politics is usually understandable. We usually, however, do not praise a useful lie as a positive.

But that is, predictably, how Obama's various cultists are reacting to the lie.

They are actually praising Obama for making the amazing discovery that it is often helpful to lie, break promises, and act according to ruthlessly unprincipled self-interest. Surely no white politician would be "cunning" enough to realize this.

Scratch that -- surely no human being without divine parentage could possibly have the "cunning" to lie for personal gain.

It's truly extraordinary.

Next up, Andrew Sullivan and David Brooks will praise Obama for having the "moral courage" to work Chicago's corrupt political levers with gusto and take his dirty payoffs from Tony Rezko. Only He Who Was Prophesized could possibly take money from the Chosen Bagman. And then the Three Magi of the Chicago Machine descended upon The Savior's Rezko-subsidized estate, bearing him Gifts of Donations, Patronage, and Votes of Dead Men.

I feel like I'm watching Ghostbusters. "Surely no human being could stack books like this."


digg this
posted by Ace at 04:00 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, : "BOING! ..."

Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere [/i] [/b]: "Worked out solidly yesterday morning at the 1/5 mi ..."

Puddleglum, cheer up for the worst is yet to come: "I'm surrounded by worshippers of the god king Barr ..."

Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere [/i] [/b]: "[i] I hope you're cats are comforting you, Wolfus. ..."

JackStraw: "Can you imagine a world where somebody took a shot ..."

Puddleglum, cheer up for the worst is yet to come: "I hope you're cats are comforting you, Wolfus. ..."

Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere [/i] [/b]: "Mike Hammer is back and okay? Great news! Welcom ..."

T. Walz, Sodomist: " Less aloof? She's preparing to eat your cor ..."

Puddleglum, cheer up for the worst is yet to come: "Emojis don't seem to be working at the moment, oth ..."

Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere [/i] [/b]: "Odd dream that verged on nightmare. I was driving ..."

Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere [/i] [/b]: "Stateless, little Dagny La Siberienne cat, the alo ..."

JackStraw: ">> I'm not cutting off my dick, Jack. I will remai ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64